Charlotte Hornets: Who should get the most opportunity with Malik Monk suspended?

With Malik Monk’s suspension, there are a few players that now have potentially expanded roles with the Charlotte Hornets this season.

This week was a tough week for Charlotte Hornets fans. Third-year guard Malik Monk was suspended indefinitely for violating the league’s anti-drug program.

This is especially disappointing considering how well Malik had been playing in the past few weeks leading up to the suspension. In his last 13 games, he was averaging 17 points on 44% field goal percentage.

Malik had even started in his first career NBA game the night before he was suspended. That was mostly because Devonte’ Graham did not play, however, Malik had well earned a chance to start with his recent play. Borrego had other options; like when he chose to start Caleb Martin over Malik a few weeks ago.

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The time of Malik Monk’s suspension is unknown, but it is assumed by most people to be more extensive than short-term.

With that being said, Malik’s sixth-man minutes now have to be distributed elsewhere. There are a few candidates to get Malik’s minutes, like Caleb Martin, Jalen McDaniels, even Kobi Simmons from the Greensboro Swarm.

I would like to see Dwayne Bacon get called up from his semi-voluntary assignment playing in the G-League and to get another chance in the rotation for the rest of the season.

Coming into the year Dwayne Bacon had pretty high expectations among Hornets fans. He was viewed as an aggressive scorer and attacker paired with some promising defensive potential on the wing.

He did not meet those expectations at all. He was disappointing in a lot of fans’ eyes.

Bacon went from the starting lineup at the beginning of the season to the Bench, to falling out of the rotation, to being put back in the rotation, to falling back out, to going to the G-League with allegedly some sort of voluntary request of sorts.

Bacon really struggled to score the ball and couldn’t finish at the rim like he had been accustomed to and his defense had trailed off.

Dwayne Bacon is still a very talented guy and I believe that he can work out his offensive struggles with even more reps and opportunity.

But at the end of the day, whoever gets the expanded opportunity needs to take advantage of the situation and run with it!